As carbon dioxide continues to contribute to climate change, some oil and gas companies are putting the gas to use to enhance oil recovery while certain sectors of the industry are putting the spotlight on carbon capture and storage technology.

While using CO2 to help move oil has been in use for decades as an EOR technique for producing fields, storing the gas in abandoned oil and gas fields is gaining more attention now. Although the latter can be a pricey proposition and raises concerns about storage capacity, it is an option available to reduce greenhouse gas, according to John Tombari, vice president of Schlumberger Carbon Services.

“The good news is that it may be possible to do something good with respect to climate change and do something that can help us increase the supply of domestic oil using carbon dioxide to enhance oil recovery as well as putting it in the earth for storage,” Tombari told the crowd gathered for the Nov. 30 Decision Strategies Oilfield Breakfast Forum in Houston.

Already, carbon dioxide is being captured today, he said, noting a gasification plant in North Dakota is capturing more than 1 million tons of CO2 and piping it to Canada for EOR projects in fields there. Transportation of CO2 also poses no challenge, considering there are thousands of miles of CO2 pipelines in West Texas and other places across the US.

“Carbon dioxide can be put in those salient formations that many of us unfortunately found while we were looking for oil and gas and finding nothing put massive volumes of saltwater,” he continued. “So those formations can actually be used because they have pore space and permeability and the carbon dioxide can be placed in a safe way into those formations for storage.”

However, there are technological issues to overcome, Tombari pointed out. These include the cost of capture and storage capacity as well as ensuring and monitoring containment for the long term.

“With CO2 storage, this is really a new market. These are new customers, new industries that will be dealing with CO2 in the subsurface and needing to work under a new regulatory environment. Long-term monitoring would be in play, and then clearly there would be high public awareness and concern because this will need to be done in non-oil and gas areas,” Tombari said.

However, “CO2 enhanced oil recovery is pretty much business as usual, and there is a clear regulatory environment within which this can be done,” he added. The primary technology concerns are sweep, miscibility, and production strategy. The EOR method is prevalent in several places across the US, including the Great Plains Coal Gasification Plant in North Dakota, the Antrim Gas Plant in Michigan, an ammonia plant in Oklahoma, and gas plants in west Texas.

The CO2 EOR method also has captured the attention of US Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Chuck McConnell, who discussed the method as a way to increase domestic oil production and economically store the gas during his Senate confirmation hearing in July, Tombari noted. The US Department of Energy has plans for six CO2 EOR demonstration projects through 2014.

“Really, the only useful thing to do today is enhanced oil recovery,” Tombari said while comparing the two technologies. “If we want to continue with this technology, if we do have some climate concerns, perhaps the wise thing to do is take advantage of the revenue from hydrocarbons enhanced oil recovery, do a good thing and do both.”

Contact the author, Velda Addison, vaddison@hartenergy.com.

Comments